The pros and cons of building cities on special resources

[Alexander's Horse]

I don't do this but I'm interested in why people do.

For what its worth I don't build on specials because I like to get 2 or three specials within a city radius.

I'm always looking for whales and will always site a city to take even one whale in.

[ColdWizard]

Pro: in MP, building on a special prevents someone else from parking some defensive units on it and thereby preventing you from using it. especially gold where it can be difficult to kick off the intruding units

[War4ever]

building your capital on gold virtually guarrantees your safety until the late game.....

building on specials makes losing them far more difficult..

of course building on specials means you likely need more cities, thus meaning more micro and attention needed.....

of course a capital with four trade specials is far better than four cities with one special each..especially as you add city improvements and/or trade routes

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Whenever specials are alone, it is worth building on them. Particularly if it will be ages before you get around to foresting any invisible specials on grassland. I will usually try to get 2+ specials in a city, but don't mind building on one.

I will build on bananas and spice without any hesitation. The food production is the same as a grassland, but with many arrows - and that one free shield you get from the city tile.

Frontier iron or gold towns have their uses in some games, as well.

[ramses II.]

@Alexander's Horse

Concerning your nick: I think the name of Alexander's Horse was Bukephalos, wasn't it?

[rah]

There are quite a few good reasons to build right on the special.
(Most already mentioned)

1. No one else can build on it
2. You can take advantage of it faster. 1 Free food for gold or iron. 1 Free shield for spice/gems/fruit
3. Road bonus
4. Defense

If I have a multiple special pattern and one is a whale. I will try to build on the square next to the land based special while still in reach of the whale. If it's a 4 pattern, that's two cities. The only exception is when starting on a river and the 4 pattern is exposed on the opening and in reach. I'll just try to build the next ring of cities quickly to protect the four pattern for my cap.

[Messer Niccolò]

I think the Pro are essentially for MP games, even if the Marquis point correctly that for some border cities...
I don't usually do it (but I also don't play MP )

[rah]

And since most MP games last into the later eras, It is unlikely that your cities will be much larger than size 12, so city overlap isn't as big of an issue.

RAH
In SP, I'm more likely to look to take advantage of more multiple special cities, because I know how much the ai doesn't like to build on non grassland squares. so I'm not worried about them building on my specials.

[Xin Yu]

I don't want to build a city on a special. In early stages I prefer 2 specials, one food and one shield. When the city is at size 1 I work on the food special, and when size 2 I work on both -- can produce settlers faster. Of course 3 specials with one food and two shields would be better -- I can have two cities using one food and one shield specials alternately.

However there are always exceptions.

[DaveV]

I love building on certain specials. If you build on wine, the square yields +1 food, +1 shield, and +1 trade from what it would yield unimproved. And you didn't spend any settler time to pick up those extra goodies! More arrows in the early game = quicker research and more money. Any time saved in the early game will be compounded through the years, and can translate to a huge advantage later on.

The ideal square to work under despotism is 2/2/2 (whales), but a city on wine is pretty close: 2/1/4. A city on wine won't grow as fast as some of your other cities under Monarchy, but it will grow as fast as a city on grass that's working the wine square. If you irrigate to speed up growth, you sacrifice the extra shield from the city square; if you mine, you sacrifice the extra food.

And spice or fruit on a river is also a great place to build: same defense as a hill, good food, good trade. And, once again, a bonus shield from a square that normally would produce nothing.

[rah]

Yes, every beaker early can be important. 4 extra turns in monarchy is big. (life sucks when you're 2- beakers short for 3050 or 2850 and have to wait the extra turns.) Spitting out settlers is considerably quicker in monarchy. And the extra money to buy up an extra rack is equally important.

Rich

[DrFell]

I generally don't build on specials. It's best to build on any grassland square next to the special, preferably shielded grassland, but if not, it's still ok. Also I try to fit 2 or more specials in the city radius. This give you several advantages. Firstly, building on the grassland gives you free road + irrigation, and high food so your city will expand faster. Building between the specials also gives you maximum access to the special squares ASAP (as soon as the city expands to size 2), and allows you productive cities if for any reason you need to halt settler production (maybe the city is in the centre of your empire, or you're under attack), in this case if you were building on specials you'd need a city for every special, which is not desirable if you have other worries.

As for building on specials, I'll do it if the special offers a defensive bonus when I need one (say, blocking off a chokepoint), I will sometimes build on wheat squares or even banana squares if in the right situation (lots of forest about, no other specials), and I'll build on specials to steal them from my opponent. Otherwise, I look for more efficient city placement.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by DrFell
It's best to build on any grassland square next to the special, preferably shielded grassland, but if not, it's still ok.

Spoken like a true 2x production multiplayer . In a 1x production game, I'll build on shield grassland only as a last resort (like if it's the only land square in range of whales).

[rah]

Originally posted by DaveV

The ideal square to work under despotism is 2/2/2 (whales),

*WHALES* mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Actually that's what pissed me off the most out CIV III.
They screwed with the whale. It is no longer supreme.
Bummer.


RAH

[geofelt]

Is it considered a cheat to mine a hill before building a city on it? If you do this, a city on wine could be particularly good.